Gov. Ducey should remove National Guard from the border over policy separating children

Opinion: If Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey actually disagreed with President Trump's zero tolerance policy, he would take action.

Bryan Rosales, 2, cries during a protest against the zero-tolerance immigration policy, that has led to children being separated from their parents at the border, outside the Sandra Day O'Connor Courthouse in Phoenix on June 18, 2018.(Photo: Patrick Breen/The Republic)

Gov. Doug Ducey is against separating children from their parents at the border … until he’s kind of, sort of … not.

If there is one thing you’d think that a politician would take a stand on. A strong stand. A moral stand.

It would be children.

As in, it is wrong – period – to separate children from their parents.

There are no ifs, ands or buts.

No need to waffle on this one

CLOSE

The politics team talks about family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border and Gov. Ducey's campaign announcement.
Carly Henry/The Republic

Yet Ducey seems to add them. The hem and haw. To equivocate. Seemingly incapable of standing up for what is right – for kids – out of fear that he may offend some Trump voters in an election year.

There is no other explanation.

Last week, when asked about the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which is putting kids into what amounts to government prison camps, Ducey said, “I don’t want to see children separated from their parents. My heart breaks for these families. At the same time, we need to look at the role of parental responsibility when an adult is approaching our border conducting illegal activity with a child.”

Really, that’s where you’re going, governor?

No government responsibility?

Parental responsibility?

What about governmental responsibility? What about the moral responsibility of the United States, a country built on principles that make the idea of separating kids from parents repugnant?